Avatar Kinect brings magic of motion-controlled chatrooms to 360

Microsoft's Kinect has been a runaway success, selling 8 million units worldwide since launch. At CES, the company announced its next step in taking over your living room in strange and interesting ways. Say hello to Avatar Kinect, a value-added feature for Xbox Live Gold subscribers that allows Kinect owners to interact with their friends and family using their avatars, motion control, and virtual chat rooms.

There's a video of what that will entail, so give it a watch.

Avatar Kinect

The ability to control your Avatar's facial expressions may not be compelling when it comes to chat, but it does show an impressive level of control that can be brought to games and other experiences. While we doubt gamers will be filming virtual talk shows in large numbers any time soon, it's nice to see the company stretching what is possible with the Kinect hardware. Adding interactive elements to these sets would be an easy way to create online quiz shows, or even sporting events.

It may look hokey now, but if you think of this as a first step and not a destination... things get a little more positive.